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Another attempt to fight state corruption

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivers one of his State of the State addresses at SUNY Albany in Albany, N.Y., Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017.(Photo: Hans Pennink, AP)

ALBANY -- If you first don't succeed at ending corruption, try and try again.

With scandals continuing to plague the state Capitol, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday revisited a series of ethics reforms that he has so far failed to get approved by the state Legislature, again making an appeal for stronger laws.

"We are limited by our public support and if that Legislature and if our executive wants to really do all they can, we need to improve the public trust," Cuomo said during the final of his six regional State of the State addresses in Albany.

The state Legislature last year grappled with the convictions on corruption charges of the former leaders of the Senate and Assembly.

In September, Cuomo's own office was rocked by scandal: His former top aide Joseph Percoco and economic development czar Alain Kaloyeros, then president of the SUNY Polytechnic Institute, were among nine people charged with alleged kickbacks and bid rigging involving upstate projects.

Last month, Cuomo sought to get the Legislature to agree to a package of ethics reforms as part of a deal for their first pay raise since 1999.

But the deal fell apart, and now Cuomo is trying to get them to approve his sixth ethics package in his seven years in office.

"Just imagine what we could if we really had 100 percent confidence from the people of the state," Cuomo said during the speech at SUNY Albany -- where only a few lawmakers attended after he broke from tradition this year and didn't hold an address before a joint session of the Legislature.

The 10-point proposal is largely the same ideas he put forth last month: limiting lawmakers' outside income; imposing term limits and eliminating a loophole that lets companies open LLCs to skirt campaign-contribution limits.

He also again proposed a system of public financing for elections and bolstering the state's Freedom of Information by requiring the Legislature to comply.

For the executive branch, he would install greater oversight of state's contracting, including at the state's public colleges.

Some of the measure have been backed by lawmakers, but Republicans who control the Senate have largely opposed limits on their outside income -- which is the key issue that led to the conviction of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan.

The legislative session runs through mid-June, but a deal for an on-time state budget is March 31.

State GOP chairman Ed Cox, who has offered a rebuttal to Cuomo's speeches at most stops, criticized the Democratic governor's ethics proposal.

"All you have to know about the governor and ethics is he appointed a Moreland Commission, saying ‘You can examine anything you want,"' Cox said about the troubled ethics commission in 2014.

"Well, when they started examining him and his supporters, what did he do? He terminated it."